One may well wonder where the term “Hispanic,” and for that matter, “Latino,” came from. The press and pundits are all abuzz about the Hispanic vote, Hispanic organizations, and Hispanic cultural influences. Back in the mid-twentieth century, however, they wrote about Mexicans or Puerto Ricans or Guatemalans, not about Hispanics. Of course, people of Latin American origin have become far more numerous in the United States since then and the immigration itself brings more attention. Nonetheless, the labels have changed. Starting in the 1970s, the media rapidly adopted the “pan-ethnic” term Hispanic, and to a lesser degree, Latino, and slowed down their use of specific national labels.* So did, organizations, agencies, businesses, and “Hispanics” themselves.

As recounted in her important new book, Making Hispanics, sociologist (and my colleague) G. Cristina Mora tells the story of how people as diverse as Cuban-born businessmen in Miami, undocumented Mexican farm workers in California, and third-generation part-Puerto Ricans in New York who do not even understand Spanish were brought together into one social category: Hispanic-Americans.

Politics, Business, and Government

Mora describes an alliance that emerged in the 1970s among grassroots activists, Spanish-language broadcasters, and federal officials to define and promote “Hispanic.”

Activists had previously stressed their national origins and operated regionally – notably, Mexicans in the southwest (where the term “Chicano” became popular for a while) and Puerto Ricans in the northeast. But the larger the numbers they could claim by joining together, the more political clout, the more governmental funds, and the more philanthropic support they could claim. Pumping up the numbers was particularly important given their latent competition with African-American activists over limited resources and limited media attention. Some pan-ethnic term promised to yield the biggest count.

Spanish-language television broadcasters, notably Univision, looked to expand their appeal to advertisers by delivering them a national market. Although the broadcasters faced obstacles in appealing to Spanish-language viewers across the country differing significantly in programming tastes and dialects, they managed to amalgamate the audiences by replacing content imported from abroad with content developed in the United States. They could then sell not medium-to-small Mexican-, Cuban-, or Puerto Rican-American audiences to advertisers, but one huge Hispanic-American audience.

Making the term official as a census category helped both activists and entrepreneurs. Previously, the Bureau of the Census classified Latin Americans as whites with distinct national origins, usually poorly measured. The activists pressed the census bureau, as did some politicians, to provide as broad a label as possible and count everyone who might conceivably fit the category, including, for example, the African-origin Dominicans (although not the French-speaking Haitians nor the Portuguese-speaking Brazilians). This pressure led to the 1980 formulation, used ever since, in which the census asks Americans whether or not they are “Hispanic” separately from whether they are white, black, Asian, or Indian.

The three interest groups worked together to publicize and promote the idea and the statistical category of “Hispanic.” As Mora explains, leaving the label’s meaning somewhat ambiguous was useful in both expanding the numbers and in selling the category – as a large needy population to the government and as numerous, affluent consumers to advertisers. The three parties also campaigned to get other institutions, such as state vital statistics bureaus and big businesses to adopt Hispanic as an official category. Many so-called Hispanics preferred and still prefer to call themselves by their national origins; Mora quotes a 1990s bumper sticker, “Don’t Call Me Hispanic, I’m Cuban!” But the term has taken over.

And, so Hispanic-Americans matter a lot now.

Identities

Categories of people that we take to be fixed – for example, our assumptions that people are old or young, black or white, male or female – often turn out to be not fixed at all. Social scientists have documented the way the definition of Negro/African American/black has shifted over the generations. There was a time, for example, when the census bureau sought to distinguish octoroons and a time when it could not figure out how to classify people from the Indian subcontinent. In Making Hispanics, Mora lets us see close up just how this new category, Hispanic, that we now take to be a person’s basic identity, was created, debated, and certified.

One lesson is that it could have been otherwise. If the pace and sources of migration had been different or if the politics of the 1970s had cut differently, maybe we would be talking about two separate identities, Chicano and “Other Spanish-speaking.” Or maybe we would be classifying the darker-skinned with “Blacks” and lighter-skinned with “Whites.” Or something else. Making Hispanics teaches us much about the social construction of identity.

* Based on my analysis of statistics on New York Times stories and the nGram data on words in American books. Use of “Chicano” surged in 1960s and 1970s, but then faded as “Latino” and, especially, “Hispanic” rose.

Comments 51

Umlud — March 29, 2014

* Based on my analysis of statistics on New York Times stories and the nGram data on words in American books. Use of “Chicano” surged in 1960s and 1970s, but then faded as “Latino” and, especially, “Hispanic” rose.

I did a little Google n-gramming myself, but came up with a different trend in which Latino/Latina has remained relatively constant since 1950 (having increased since 1900), whereas Hispanic definitely rose sharply in the mid-late 1970s following a massive surge in the 1960s and similarly massive fall in in the 1970s in the use of Chicano/Chicana.

In short, the Google n-gram result I found supports your statement of a surge in the use of Chicano/Chicana and its fall corresponding with a simultaneous rise in the use of Hispanic. However, I the n-gram result I found didn't show a similar trend in the use of Chicano/Chicana in relation to Latino/Latina.

You cite New York Times articles in addition to Google n-gram, and Google n-gram does only look at books (and not newspaper articles). Is the trend for Latino/Latina that you describe is found there?

Cheers.

Larry Charles Wilson — March 29, 2014

I enjoy it when individuals rediscover the wheel.

Umlud — March 29, 2014

Also, it's interesting to see that looking at n-grams of books published in Spanish the term "latino/a" remains far more common than "hispánico/a" and that the peak in the use of "hispánico/a" reached a peak in the 1950s, roughly 20 years before its surge in US English.

A peek at British English usage on n-grams reveals - unsurprisingly - a different trend of use than in the US. In contrast, in French, the term "hispanique" rose in bursts (1910s, 1940s, 1980s). (I dropped the search for "latin" - the term that "Latino" apparently translates into, because of the vast amount of usage referring to the Latin (i.e., Roman) language.)

Bill R — March 29, 2014

My grandmother (Norwegian) used to complain non-Scandinavian Eur

Just a question — March 29, 2014

What I'd like to know is why choose "Hispanic" over "Latino"? After all, "Hispanic" refers back to Spain (which occupies the peninsula of Hispaniola), whereas "Latino" is a contraction of "latinoamericano" (aka "Latin American"). If there was a desire to focus on Spanish-speaking culture in the Americas, why not prefer "Latino"?

Ely — March 29, 2014

@Just a question

I can not speak over English, but Hispanic, «hispano» in Spanish, denotes something related TO Spain, not referring to Spaniard things or people themselves or Spain itself (it can, but it does not exclusively does).

As countries born for former territories in the Spanish Empire, it is quite correct to term ourselves (as we often do for academic and journalistic purposes) «naciones hispanas», "Hispanic nations". However, a person from one of these so-called Hispanic nations is a «hispanoamericano», "Hispanic-American" (usually African or Filipino people are not included), making «hispano», "Hispanic", a useful shorthand.

However, IF "Hispanic" in English refers exclusively to things pertaining to Spain, then I must say it's quite likely a carry-over fro Spanish. You do have a surprising, non-obvious number of those ("hoosegow" and "breeze", for instance).

Maybe the Latin label is problematic for the label-obsessed US people, since Latin is an even ***more*** vague label than "Hispanic" since it refers to ANYONE from a culture founded upon a Latin-derived language. Broadly speaking, the French, Italian, Arubans (since they speak Papiamento), Portuguese and so on are Latin. "Latino" (Spanish or Portuguese for "Latin"), amusingly enough, has passed ONLY to mean Latin-American since that's how «latinoamericano» is commonly contracted.

Amongst us, Spanish-speakers still leaving down here, «latino» as either Latin or Latin-American depends or context and is about equally used as eitherr, perhaps more slanted towards "Latin-American".

I think you should find it interesting that around here, we tend to go by our countries of origins, by and large, «latinoamericano» is used when evoking a sense of unity, like rallying against something (usually the US), and INCLUDES always, always, Brazil and others in usage (unlike Latin-American, which is conflated with Hispanic-American in English. Used like thus:

"The Latin-American is poor, ignorant, honest and hard-working. Let's fight for a better future for Latin America!"

*Actually a line I heard somewhere.

Obviously, since we «latinoaericanos», Latin-American people, see us as pitted againt corruption, poverty, transnationals, powerful countries carrying big sticks, that label is more used than «hispanoamericano» or «lusoamericano» (Portuguese American?), since it's more exclusionary, does NOT illustrate how we feel for each other despite all the bickering and disagreements and rivalries, thus is only ever useful for academia.

Hope this really, really, long post helps you all, guys

earthman48 — March 30, 2014

A Hispanic classification makes as much sense as an "English" classification that includes Londoners, Nigerians, and American southern rednecks.

Edmond X. Ramirez Sr. — March 30, 2014

All of this is sheer nonsense; far to many people in America refer, and prefer to use their descendancy and pride thereof than the fact that they are Americans ... this country puts the food on their tables, the clothes on their backs and the roof over their heads ... I am an American of Mexican descent, I am not a Mexican-Ametr

Edmond X. Ramirez Sr. — March 30, 2014

typo...Mexican-American! America is my country, first and foremost. As a country we are fragmenting our nation by these sobriquets. Terms like French-American, German-American, Hispanic, etc. should all be changed to American of the person's descendency, or just American. Our country's ethni

Hugo — March 30, 2014

As a Spaniard from Europe, born in a town 5 minutes away from France is funny that when in the US my family and I are labeled as Hispanic by government and agencies, like we have a lot in common other than the language with the hispanic-americans. And my wife is German LOL. We don´t care but we don´t see the logic either.

Ben IncaHutz — March 30, 2014

Race and ethnicity is as authentic Scientology. Its bunk and its pathetic we are still talking about it in 21st century. Our great-great-great grandparents raped and cross bred enough that we are all "mutts" if you want to get specific.

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bad_lil_tt — September 21, 2014

can anyone help me find out
Why Hispanics came t America?
Where did they come from?
When did they get here?
Are they still here?
What did they bring with them?

I'll skip to the punchline: money | InstaKnightMe — October 6, 2014

[…] Where Did “Hispanics” Come From? » Sociological ImagesOne may well wonder where the term “Hispanic,” and for that matter, “Latino,” came from. The press and pundits are all abuzz about the Hispanic vote, Hispanic organizations, and Hispanic cultural influences. Back in the mid-twentieth century, however, they wrote about Mexicans or Puerto Ricans … […]

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Stop the lies Hispanic is a slave named the violent false Christians of Columbus came over and murdered all our people Hispanic is a slave name his definition is property